This board is a composition workshop, like a writers' workshop: post your work with questions about style or vocabulary, comment on other people's work, post composition challenges on some topic or form, or just dazzle us with your inventive use of galliambics.

I'm the self-taught Latin teacher who joined recently and was helped with the Latin letter home to parents (audio CD project).

This coming Saturday, June 6, the church of which I'm a member will be having a Vacation Bible School with the theme "Rome: Paul and the Underground Church". I'm playing the role of a Senator Atticus who sets free one of his slaves, Tullius. I have agreed to say part of my lines in Latin and then one of the other members will "translate" into English.

Below are the English lines and my draft translation. If you could help me improve the Latin between now and Friday, June 5, when we have our rehearsal (5:00 pm CDT U.S. time), I would appreciate it very much. Here they are:

FREE!

(Senator Atticus steps forward, smiling, accepting the applause.)

SENATOR ATTICUS: Friends, Romans, countrymen! I come today not as a senator, which I am-one of the most powerful men in Rome. The most powerful man most of you will ever meet.

And I don't come as a man who is rich-though I am. I have enough money to buy this entire Marketplace a hundred times-and you with it.

And I don't come to you as a man who is above you-though I am. I'm important and you're ... not.

I come today because I wish to set free one of your own. For many years my slave, Tullius, has run a small shop here in this Marketplace. Being a generous master, I have allowed him to keep a bit of what he's earned, and now I find that he has raised enough money to buy his freedom. And since he's getting old and slow anyway, I will allow him to be free.

I should mention that in the English line "The most powerful man most of you will ever meet" the first word, the, is emphasized, marked by italics in the script. I failed to note that. I'm aware, of course, that Latin in the classical form did not use articles, although I've seen some Neo-Latin which uses forms of ille in that sense. For example, the Latin translation of Winnie the Poo is rendered "Winnie Ille Pu". As the Senator (a fictional one) is from the first century A.D., however, I'd like to use a word that conveys a similar emphasis but is correct for the period. Not that anyone is likely to know the difference, but I want to do it right as a matter of professional pride.

Tempus fugit...again, help me polish this if you will. Rehearsal is tomorrow night, and the skit the next day.

Putting potentissimum first, perhaps with a word like enim, should be emphasis enough. You can't drop the relative pronoun in Latin. I believe vestrum has to be used here because it's used partitively.

Very interesting speech! modus.irrealis has already made a lot of good comments, here's a few more suggestions:

I like ut instead of sicut for "as a senator ... as a man who is rich ... as a man who is above you." If you said sicut, that would seem to imply, "in the manner of a senator," or "as if I were a senator." Ut is more, "in my capacity as a senator." Cf. Cicero, Pro Rege Deiotaro 13: ... venit vel rogatus ut amicus, vel accersitus ut socius, vel evocatus ut is qui senatui parere didicisset ... (‘... he came either requested as a friend, or summoned as an ally, or called forth as one who had learned to obey the Senate ....')

How about quod tamen sum for "which I am (i.e. a senator)" and etsi dives sum for "though I am (rich)," just to make the connections flow more smoothly....

Thank you both for your suggestions and willingness to help! Most of my translation efforts have been from Latin to English, and the only systematic grammar study I've done is the first 8 chapters of Wheelock, so I am not very skilled yet in doing English to Latin. However, I intend to continue learning. I do enjoy this kind of challenge.

Will take a look at your suggestions and make a final draft over the next couple of hours (our only rehearsal is tonight at 5:00 pm, Central Daylight Time, U.S., and the VBS skit is tomorrow).

Yes, I think you'll find that English to Latin translation is a great way to get better. Bradley's Arnold is, of course, the classic textbook for Latin prose composition. It contains very good grammatical explanations and example sentences; on the other hand, the exercises that it gives you for practice are not very helpful. (In my opinion, others may disagree.) The problem is that you never get to drill repeatedly on the thing you've just learned: they fling the most complicated sentence imaginable at you, sometimes with five or six layers of subordination, and you're supposed to work through it deductively like it's a logic puzzle. (And your old British schoolmaster is supposed to smack you down and tell you how stupid you are.) I've found better practice sentences in Jenney's Second Year Latin (http://www.amazon.com/Jenneys-Second-La ... 619&sr=8-1) -- you can get used copies for pretty cheap. It may also help to compose a bunch of sentences of your own, using a particular grammatical feature -- then people in this forum may be willing to offer corrections! But it looks like you've made a good start already....